IT’S not often I feel sorry for Harry and Meghan.
But in the case of the Princess Diana memorial party at Kensington Palace, the pair were damned if they did attend — and damned if they didn’t.
Their decision to shun next week’s bash has been viewed in some quarters as yet another snub to the Royal Family, another thing to make poor Diana turn in her grave. I disagree.
Had the Duke and Duchess of Sussex jumped on to their favourite private jet to make an appearance at the postponed event, they’d have been, in metaphorical terms, hanged, drawn and quartered.
The reality is that nobody wants them there. Least of all Prince William, who’s been left to carry the royal burden on his lone, gym-honed shoulders, while Harry coins it in from his nine-bedroom Montecito mansion.
Certainly not Diana’s beloved siblings, Earl Spencer, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, who, understandably, just want the day to be about their late sister and nothing else.
Nor the Princess of Wales’s friends and former members of staff who must, surely, see Harry’s petulance and weep.
And, finally — perhaps most importantly — neither do the majority of the Great British Public who have, finally, had their fill of the endlessly hypocritical duo.
Days after their recent Time magazine front cover, the privacy-loving eco-couple went on a three-day vanity tour of New York, which is precisely where they should be, and what they should be doing.
Poverty campaigner Meghan sported a designer Max Mara coat, Valentino shades and Italian cult label Valextra handbag for a trip to the UN headquarters.
She later described the tete-a-tete with the Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed as a “lovely meeting”.
As if she were emerging from a Women’s Institute cake bake.
Over the three days, the cost of her wardrobe totalled £67,000. In contrast, last week Kate Middleton wore a £16 dress from Zara.
This was the couple’s first major excursion since quitting the Royal Family, and buggering off to California.
With endless handshakes, royal waves and a procession of dignitaries, wreaths, photocalls, military-grade security and a kowtowing Press pack, this trip, as one commentator observed, had, “all the hallmarks of a royal tour except for one minor detail: They no longer represent Queen and country”.
‘THEY WON’T LET A PESKY SET OF MORALS STOP THEM’
Still, that didn’t stop the shy multi-millionaires, who did generously donate two boxes of vegetables and herbs to a school in Harlem, from giving it their all to a largely captive American audience.
If the couple aren’t to fade into obscurity (chance would be a fine thing), it’s the royal-obsessed Americans they should be wooing.
With no monarchy of their own to fawn over, they view the Firm’s very existence as a sort of soap opera.
Thirty million Americans watched as Harry married his American bride in May 2018 — 18million more than in this country.
Staunchly principled Prince Harry, who signed a reported £112million deal with Netflix, has remained eerily quiet about the streaming giant’s latest production, Diana: The Musical.
Described by one reviewer as “so bad it makes Cats look good”, maybe one of the Cats has got his tongue, too.
Of course, Harry and Meghan aren’t entirely stupid.
They know they’re on to a good thing with this American gig — and won’t let a pesky set of morals stop them from cracking the States.
Across the pond, there remains an appetite for the pair.
H&M have made their 1,000-thread-count Egyptian cotton bed in the US.
Now they can, and should, shut up, and lie in it.
